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Digital Culture: The Changing Dynamics
governments of transition countries could take into account. 15 The “addiction
strategy” (such as the above-stated Microsoft one) is not new in the business world,
but the question arises – why not circumvent it with the use of open and free options
(for example the Chinese used the free GNU/Linux operating system (Lessig, 2004:
65) instead of the Microsoft one)? The answer lies in enhancing the lobbying power
of the creators and promoters of open-source models.
Expenditure on ICT and culture
As has been noted in the previous sections, cultural consumption and production in
the SEE region have been executed partly on pirated software, while a certain
proportion of cultural goods have been exchanged through the grey economy. But
how much do citizens of the SEE region spend on ICT and on culture? In the light of
this enquiry, we will take a look at what the difference is between “recreation and
culture” and “communication” at the level of household expenditure in the SEE
countries (in comparison to the EU25). What is interesting is the difference between
the EU countries and the SEE countries regarding the share of household expenditure
on recreation and culture as can be seen from Figure 1 below.
Figure 1 shows that in the majority of the SEE countries (Croatia, Greece,
Bulgaria, Romania, Macedonia, Montenegro and Serbia) the expenditure on
communication is higher than the EU25 average. Also, in more than half of the SEE
countries the household expenditure on communication is higher than on recreation
and culture (Serbia, Montenegro, Macedonia, Romania, and Bulgaria). This can be
attributed to the high prices of the services in the SEE countries. To be more precise,
the most important impediment to catching-up with modern ICT development within
the SEE countries is the level of prices of telecom services that matches the level
within the developed countries in nominal terms, while it is considerably higher in
real terms.
15 For example, the Brazilian government (especially its Minister of Culture Gilberto Gil) is
one of the biggest promoters of Creative Commons.
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